Tag: Asif Ali Zardari

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s quiet exit to Dubai sometime last week could mean any of several things: business rendezvous, recreation break, sabbatical from security scares, brat tantrum. It could also mean a mid-campaign shove to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) by its recently anointed patron-in-chief.

Few in Pakistan are prepared to be convinced yet the prodigal Bhutto son has pressed self-eject following a dust-up with his presidential father and de facto PPP boss Asif Ali Zardari. Many are ingesting it with dollop doses of salt because Bilawal’s departure — and its circumstances — was revealed by an Indian wire service, the Press Trust of India (PTI).

This makes for an enigmatic pattern to blockbuster newsbreaks on Bilawal, whatever their worth or truth: they seem to originate not in Pakistan but pop up elsewhere in the subcontinent. Last September, the Blitz of Dhaka had front-paged a flaming, though fanciful, tale of illicit love between Bilawal and Pakistan’s glamorous foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar. It is still not clear what part, if any, Bilawal or Hina Khar had in it; the ISI most likely did. The appearance of the ISI’s by-line on it dealt the tale of the “fiery affair” a swift kiss of death.

Lahore, Nov. 18: There’s a bequest chief minister Nitish Kumar has carried back home from Pakistan that escaped the customs authorities at Wagah.

He has been gifted so profusely over the past week by his hosts, it required a station wagon to be added to his road caravan; the aircraft hold on the final lap to Patna would probably have choked on their burden — trophy plaques, a rainbow range of traditional hats, piles of shawls and chadars, carton-loads of tomes on a shared civilisation and history.

But the takeaway that neither registered nor bleeped on the crossover X-ray ramps is what Nitish might want to treasure most from his trip — it’s endorsement from a constituency that has dogged and harried generations of Indian leaders, a certificate of recognition and respect, Made in Pakistan. Continue reading “Certificate for Nitish, Made in Pakistan”→

Karachi, Nov. 9: The red carpet rolled out for Nitish Kumar is actually a black Mercedes. It is an especially souped-up limo, double-proofed against bullets and bombs, and it is the same vehicle that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari uses when he comes home to Karachi.

It says at least two things that the Bihar chief minister has been accorded President Zardari’s car. One, that he is being feted at the highest level in this province and provided the utmost care. Two, and probably more important, that Karachi is the most dangerous city in Pakistan. A third could well be a subtle signal to a people who foreground their grumble over the export of terror that Pakistan itself lives a shivered and precarious existence. Continue reading “Zardari’s armoured limo for Nitish”→